


The Maiden of South Beach

by Ragazza_Guasto



Category: Original Work
Genre: Attempted Suicide(Fake), F/M, Fantasy, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Mermaids, Private Investigators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-07 19:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1911348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ragazza_Guasto/pseuds/Ragazza_Guasto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A P.I. is hired to find a Real Estate moguls missing wife, but when he finds her on the beach, her tale of woe is unlike anything he's ever heard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Maiden of South Beach

**Author's Note:**

> Cute little short about a sassy merlady and her struggle to find love.
> 
> For [Anna](http://a-causidicus.tumblr.com/) because she asked nicely.

Giovanni Noriega, Van to his friends, sat on a pristine white sofa in the living room of Real Estate Mogul Desmond Deluca's Mansion and thought, _'I can see why she left.'_

"And you don't want to involve the police...," he let the sentence draw out in question.

"No, it's unnecessary. She's not in any danger, she's just hiding, of that I'm positive," Desmond answered with the surety of a Catholic Priest in Sunday School.

"All right but...I'm still not sure why you came to me with this. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm fully capable of finding you're wife, it's just that there are dozens of other P.I.'s in Miami. Why me?"

"Peggy assures me you're the best in South Beach. You know the area better than anyone." He rested his hand on his secretary's shoulder where she sat below him on the couch. His perch on the arm of the sofa was no accident. Peggy smiled up at him.

He schooled his face not to show his disgust. "Thank you. Yeah, I know the terrain but what makes you think she's still-"

"She's here, Mr. Noriega, of that you can be sure. If you find her, and discreetly, there's a fat check in it for you." He smiled, showing unrealistically white teeth, and stood. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a five o'clock meeting with clients."

Van stood as Peggy handed Deluca a file and informed him of his schedule after.

He looked around the room again, noting it's lavish furnishings, modern architecture, and it's complete lack of personal touch. He felt dirty and stamped down the instinct to wipe his hands on his Khakis. Deluca left with a politician's smile and Van thought, _Christ, you'd have thought his dog was missing._

"Now, Mr. Noriega, here's all the information we have on Nicole the day she left." She handed him another file. "Inside we have her bank accounts, untouched as of today, the camera showing her car still in the garage, the taxi that picked her up at the front drive and the interview with her friends who say she never arrived at the restaurant where they had planned on meeting for lunch. Here's a picture you can use for canvasing if need be." She pulled the photo and handed it to him. Van came incredibly close to gasping. She was stunning, Nicole Deluca was, so much so it was a wonder she hadn't become more popular.

He was so distracted he asked asked aloud, "How?"

"Nicole was a very private individual," she answered with a smile.

"I guess," he mumbled. She was too beautiful to be real. Her black hair sat heavily on her shoulder, contrasting eerily with her stunning sea green eyes, in such a way that guessing her heritage was impossible. Tying the effect together was her inexplicable pale white skin. He'd never seen the like in Southern Florida before. And her smile, she was one of those rare individuals that took joy in life itself, he could tell. "Why does Deluca think she's still here?"

"I couldn't say, sir, but he was adamant that she would be close to home. I trust his judgement."

 _I don't. He's being naive to the point of stupidity. Nicole is either on some Arabian Prince's yacht or she's dead_. "All right," he tucked the picture back into the folder and smiled at the secretary, "I'll do my best."

"You can contact me personally for any questions or updates." She held her hand out, which Van took, and then she showed him back to the front door. He tried not to flinch again at the sight of his beat up '99 Impala parked next to her BMW and failed. _Please, Nicole, be in town._ _I need this paycheck,_ he thought.

Van spent the next two days questioning Nicole's friends. Dead end there. They basically told him the same thing Peggy had; she'd made plans to meet them for lunch and never showed. The friends were quite adamant that she was a happy woman, no way she would ever leave Des, not without telling someone where she was going and why. Van doubted this considering he'd met 'Des' and he hadn't got 'madly in love' from the man. What he really took from the interview of her friends was she'd be an idiot to walk away from all that money. After two days he was actually starting to sympathize with Nicole. He'd have left too if he had an ice cube for a spouse and debutantes for friends. If she didn't end up being fish food, he'd almost be glad to find out she'd skipped town. He sat in his battered Impala and stared at her picture for the thousandth time that day. He couldn't get over the way the light coming in from behind her illuminated her pale shoulder and made her hair seem like it took the light and reflected it back like a mirror. He brushed a hand over his day old beard and wondered where a woman like that came from. No one had been able to give him any information on her background, where home was, who her family might be...it was like she'd been conjured from thin air and had returned there as easily. He studied her face and mused upon her features; one would almost guess native Central American if not for the unusual coloring. _Lady, your face makes no sense._ His phone rang loudly, cutting through his revelry like a shot. He dove for it and burned his arm on the dash.

"Ricky, hey, sorry. You still there?"

"Yeah, man. It's cool. I've got that info you needed."

He breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed his notepad. "Thank God. I'm at a dead end. Give it to me."

"You're client was dropped at an empty lot on Alton Road, right next to the Marina. It's owned by Deluca Holdings and slated to become a hotel sometime in the next few months. Cause we need another one of those..."

"Great," he mumbled as he scribbled his note. "Thanks man, I owe you one."

"Eh, buy me a beer and we'll call it even. Things are slow here anyway," he grumbled.

Van chuckled. "That's a good thing, Rick."

"Not really. Doesn't mean crime stopped, just means we haven't caught any today."

"Good point. All right, call me when you're off, we'll go out."

"Right. Good luck."

"Thanks."

He hung up, tossed his phone in the cup holder and turned the ignition. Empty lot off Alton Road, that couldn't be far from where he sat. He ended up finding it with minimal effort, as Deluca's smug face was plastered all over the front of the fence that bordered it. He got out of the car and walked over but there wasn't much to see. It was empty but for the waiting construction equipment, some mounds of dirt and some office trailers. He sincerely hoped Nicole wasn't in one of them, or if she was, still alive at least. With nothing to go on, nothing suspicious enough to warrant breaking into the lot, he made his way east, toward the pier. Old fashion footwork would give him time to think, maybe come up with a new theory. By the time the sun started to set he was tired, hungry and nowhere near finding out what had happened to Nicole. No one remembered her, not the street vendors, not the local shop keepers, especially not the rotating tourists. Eventually he decided to call it a night and meandered over to Texas de Brazil just off the Miami beach Marina. The food was decent and the beer was needed.

“Excuse me,” he eventually leaned over to ask, “Have you seen this woman?” He held out the photo of Nicole to the couple seated next to him.

They looked at each other before the husband responded. “Were not from here,” he said.

Van didn’t allow the ‘No shit’ he was thinking to show on his face. “That’s all right, I’m just canvassing the neighborhood for her and I thought that maybe if she were still in the area recently someone might have seen her. Could you take a look?”

They looked down at the photo, studied it for four seconds before shaking their heads together. “No, sorry. Doesn’t look familiar.” They turned back toward their plates.

“Nope, I didn’t think she would.” He set the photo down again. For such a striking woman she sure did an excellent job of blending in. It was as if she had walked out onto the beach and sunk down into the sand. This woman didn’t want to be found, of that he was sure.

He sipped his Corona and stared at her picture again. He was torn between desperately wanting to find her, for his own selfish reasons, and hoping she really was gone, so her husband could never kill that spark the photo had captured.

Something on the wind made him look up suddenly and a flash of silver green caught his eye. Across the way, not fifty feet from his table, he spotted a woman walking toward the end of the pier. Van didn’t understand what had him pulling the wad of cash from his wallet but he slapped it down in a rush and bolted from the restaurant. No one else was about as he followed silently behind her and he was thankful. It was suspicious enough, him tip toeing behind her the way he was, but something about her had his instincts tingling and he didn't want to be interrupted before he could figure out why. She stopped at the end of the pier and placed her arms up on the wood. The sun was just setting, shadows crisscrossed the wooden platform, as he slid silently toward her. The last rays caught her dark hair and he confirmed the strands really were shining silver as she moved.

“Nicole Deluca?” He called out. He needed to be sure but his racing heart was near proof enough. The pale glimpse of her skin only strengthened his conviction.

“It’s a joke you know,” she said softly, just loud enough for him to hear.

He jerked to a halt. What did she mean? Was this really Nicole?

“I’m sorry?” He called out.

“My husband hiring you,” she said, still not turning to look at him.

Chills raced up his spine at the sound of her voice. It was her, he knew it in his bones, and her words confirmed it. He took another step towards her. "Are you Nicole?"

She turned her head toward him, showing just enough of her profile to tease. “You aren’t a very good detective if you don’t know that already,” she taunted.

“I had to be sure. Your husband is very worried about you.” He slid closer.

She chuckled softly, looking to the side again and down to the water beneath them. “You don’t believe that anymore than I do.”

“No, I don’t,” he answered honestly. “But you still can’t just disappear like this. Your friends are worried, that much I do know.”

“You know nothing,” she hissed. She spun at him then.

His intake of breath was involuntary. She was more beautiful in the flesh than she was on paper. Her face was pinched in anger but still he could feel the very intense and visceral reaction to her beauty. 

“Then tell me.”

“There’s no need to act the caring negotiator with me. As I said, your job is a farce. My husband hired you out of necessity. He couldn’t very well act aloof over his wife’s disappearance but don’t be fooled, he knows why I left and there was no attempt to stop me.”

“Then why not just say you left him? Why involve me at all?”

“Because he knows that I’m well on my way to disappearing,” she looked back out to sea, “it would be hard to explain without it looking like he had me killed I suppose. He is ever worried about his image.”

Van watched as she lifted herself up onto the wooden railing. Her flimsy dress caught on a nail and she ripped it away with indifference.  Van’s heart rate skyrocketed when she turned to face the sea.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean he knew you were going to disappear?” He shifted closer to her. Unwittingly the scene from Titanic rose into his thoughts. What had Leonardo said to Kate to get her to turn back from the edge of the ship?

“It doesn’t concern you.” She leaned out over the edge causing Van a near coronary.

“Please! Just talk to me.” His voice shook with panic.

She turned to him, a near smile playing around her lips. Something in her manner shifted. He watched as she came to some sort of conclusion. “You seem like a good man. Maybe I will talk to you before I go.” She beckoned him forward with an elegant twist of her hand. He practically jumped forward to rest his forearms on the railing beside her. “What’s your name?”

“Van. Giovanni Di Marco Maxilliano Noriega,” he elaborated.

She looked impressed. “That’s quite a mouthful.”

“My father was Colombian, my mother Italian. We're quite an intense family. My mother was especially dramatic.” He found himself smiling at the thought of his mother. She was as sweet as they came, but her sense of flair as she called it could get out of hand quickly. She had died of Cancer five years ago, to everyone’s surprise. The family used to joke that Denise Noriega would outlive all of them, if only to spite them. Her death had motivated him to go to school, to become a P.I. Nicole watched him silently as he thought about losing her.

“You miss her,” she stated.

He looked up. The light had faded from the sunset but there was enough artificial light from the streetlamps to illuminate her face, for him to see the empathy in her eyes. “Yeah, I do. What about you? Don’t you have any family somewhere?"

“Not here,” she whispered. Her gaze flitted down to the waves below again. “I left my family to come here,” she explained.

“So, are you going to go back to your family? Is that where you’re disappearing to?”

“Yes, exactly.” She swung her legs.

“Well why couldn’t you just tell everyone that? You’re not the first woman to leave her husband and move back home.”

She laughed out loud. “No, I’m absolutely not the first, but my situation is a bit more complicated than that.”

“You said you wanted to talk before you left. Why don’t you explain what has you so troubled?” He was desperate to understand why she was so conflicted. Sure, her husband was an idiot and so were her friends, but why feel the need to turn what should be a simple divorce into a disappearance?

She cocked her head, seeming to decide whether or not to comply. “What the hell? You won’t remember any of this by morning.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It's the way of things. You want my story, do you?”

“Yes. If you want to tell me.” She was baffling him but he still had to keep her talking.

“You asked for it Giovanni Di Marco Maximilliano Noriega.” She smirked at him and he was smitten.

“Van,” he corrected with a smile.

“Van. All right, where to begin? Hmm. I suppose you’ve heard of Atlantis?” She asked, perfectly at ease with her wildly insane question.

He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened again. “Yes?” He searched her features for a hint of sanity. _Please be sane._

“Good. Now forget everything you ever heard about it.”

“What does Atlantis-” He stared to ask before she put a long finger to his lips.

“Shh. Don’t interrupt. Now, as I was saying, Atlantis is nothing like what you humans think it is.”

“Us humans!” He squeaked. She squeezed his lips together with two fingers. His eyes bulged but he didn’t say another word.

“You humans, yes. Atlantis isn’t even the correct word for my home, but of course humans can’t articulate our speech patterns so it’s to be expected. If you think your name is a mouth full you should hear mine.” She smiled. “To continue, my home is located many miles below the sea, in an underwater cavern that leads to a city that is located in a pocket of oxygen. Our elders believe that we were always located there, that we originated there, but your recent discoveries about Evolution have challenged some of our histories. Many are starting to believe we evolved alongside you and somehow ended up below the sea, evolving our adaptations to survival as you did yours for land.”

“Your adaptations?” He whispered.

“Yes, our ability to breathe underwater, our telepathy, things of that nature. Anyway, my kind has a tradition of sorts. Our species is many times smaller than yours in number. Every so often one of us is chosen to make the journey to the surface in search of a mate.”

“But how? If we’re two different species, how can we mate?” Lord help him, he was actually going along with this.

“Good question. Technically, humans and my kind rarely do breed. But sometimes there are special occasions when we do and in those occasions the offspring becomes that much more likely to be able to mate with us. We call them Descendants. We come to the surface looking for these left behind offspring.”

“How do you find them? Do they have gills?” He asked and was rewarded with a pop to the back of the head.

“Smart ass. No. My kind are gifted in many ways, the telepathy for example. The ability to blend in despite our physical differences, I can make people forget they ever saw me if I wish. Things of that nature. My abilities enable me to find Descendants.”

“So that’s why I haven’t been able to find anyone who remembers you.” He couldn’t believe anything she said, he knew he couldn’t, but damn it if her story didn’t make some sort of wild sense. There was a lot of thought put into it.

“Exactly.” She combed her long fingers through her hair as she continued looking out to sea. The wind had picked up and tiny sections of her dark hair blew around them.

“There’s something I don’t understand though. Why are you leaving now? If you came to find a mate, aren’t you leaving empty handed?”

She hummed in agreement. “I thought Desmond would be the one. He's a Descendant. But when I explained what I was, what he was, well, let’s just say he didn’t take it the way I thought he would.”

“He thought you were nuts,” Van guessed.

“Oh, no. He was convinced of my sincerity, he just didn’t want to leave behind his millions. The greedy bastard.” She gripped the railing so tightly the wood was splintering, which should have worried him more but, honestly, all he could feel was empathy. He brushed a hand over her wrist in an attempt to calm her but she flinched away. They made eye contact again and he was struck anew how unearthly her beauty was; those eyes, her Elven features, her porcelain skin. The air turned thick and he broke the tension by looking away first.

“So tell me about home. What is your underwater city like?” He asked in an attempt to get her talking, any distraction away from her anger at Deluca and the odd moment they had shared.

“It’s like nothing here. You wouldn’t be able to imagine it. Our cultures evolved separately biologically and philosophically. We have no concept of modesty for example. The temperature in the city stays the same all year round so there’s no need for clothing. Our houses are made of glass since there is no need for privacy;  we share thoughts more often than not. ”

“Sounds nice,” he quipped. She gave him a look that said she might smack him again.

“Anyway, time is measured differently as well. Sometimes we come to the surface to find the world so changed here that we don’t know what to make of it.”

He thought about that. “It seems lonely, to be so cut off from the rest of us.” Van had grown up in a family of six, with more cousins, aunts, uncles than he knew what to do with most of the time, but despite that, or maybe because of it, he was a fairly solitary person himself. He felt like he could relate to isolation.

“It can be," she admitted. "But I feel like I will never fit in here completely. My time has come and gone. Desmond was a mistake, one I should have rectified sooner but it is what it is." She sighed quietly and smoothed her hands down her thighs. "Part of me is anxious to get home, see my family again, swim with them again, but another part is so disappointed to go home alone.” She kicked her naked feet, looking so torn it pulled at Van's heart.

Right then, in that moment, he couldn’t have said what it was exactly that made him believe her, but he did. Maybe it was the way her hair was shining silver in the lamplight, exactly the way a fish might look underwater. Maybe it was the incredible conviction she showed in telling her story, he didn’t know, but he absolutely believed her.

“So are you leaving tonight?”

“I’ve stood here at this pier for the last week trying to get up the courage to go home. I seem to be stalling.”

“If you’re waiting on me to talk you into going, I’ll tell you now, it’s not going to happen.”

“You mean you won’t pelt rocks at me and yell at me to get out of here?” She smirked.

“Not hardly.” He smiled back. She patted his arm gently. Goose flesh rose across his skin at the unexpected contact.

“You’re a good man, Van. I’m sorry your case isn’t going to be solved.”

“You're right, it’s not like I can tell them what really happened, can I? I’ll just say you must have floated off into the night, never to be seen again.” Anger rose unbidden, and he wished it was appropriate to sling this woman over his shoulder and carry her off to his apartment. He snorted to himself. He'd never had caveman tendencies before.

“That’s for the best. I also apologize for having to make you forget this meeting.”

“Do you really have to?” He looked into her eyes again.

She smiled sadly. “Yes. I am sorry. I can’t have you talking about it. It’s for your own good. People would think you were as crazy as you thought me at first.” She laughed. He didn’t laugh with her.

“I won’t tell anyone.” He touched her wrist lightly again. She looked down at their hands briefly before looking back at him.

“I know you won’t,” she whispered. “Thank you for listening, Van.” She leaned in and kissed him, so light he could have imagined it.

Before he could even open his mouth to say a word she slid off the end of the pier, disappearing into the water below with nary a splash. His first reaction was one of shock but quickly turned to horror. There was no way she would survive this far out, the tide was receding and she would surely be sucked out. He leaned over as far as he dared and debated diving in after her. Her dress floated to the surface and fractions of a second later he spotted a shining, silvery glow further out to sea. Could it be her? Was he losing his mind? He wrestled for his cell phone, dialing 911 as quickly as possible. There was no evidence that she was ever there with him on the pier, perhaps the police would think he was crazy, but he couldn’t stand there and do nothing while she might be drowning.

The operator answered. “911, what’s your emergency?”

“I’m at the Miami Beach Marina, a woman just jumped off the end of the pier,” he explained, breathless.

“Is she above water, sir?” The woman asked.

“No, I can’t see her.”

“Stay where you are, sir. Paramedics will arrive shortly and I’ve notified the Coast Guard.”

“Thank you,” he told the woman.

Before long the ambulance, police and Coast Guard arrived. He explained what had happened, who she was, the case and his client, Deluca. He left out the part where she thought she was a mermaid of course. It seemed prudent to his credibility. After four hours of coming up empty handed, and a gruesome explanation from the Coast Guard about when her body could be expected to wash ashore, Van was allowed to go home. The entire walk back to his car and the drive home his thoughts ran round Nicole’s explanation of her heredity. The longer away from her dazzling personality her story became less and less credible. Not that it had ever been so, but he could admit to being drug into her tale, being honestly touched by her plight. Now all he felt was guilt for not being able to stop her from killing herself over it. The poor woman.

Van went to bed that night and dreamed of silver fish and naked women living in glass houses.

The next day Deluca called to say that he would still pay the amount they had agreed on, even though the case had turned out so badly. Van almost told the prick to stick the check up his frozen ass, but he didn’t. He had bills to pay after all. But he wasn’t so worried about the pay check that he didn’t contact Rick and tell him about Nicole and his theory that Deluca had somehow pushed her into her delusions. Rick said they would definitely look into it. Van was nowhere near satisfied but what could he do? Nicole was gone and he had failed her.

After filing away the paperwork for the day he grabbed his keys, locked his office up for the night and jumped into his beat up Impala. Gas prices being what they were he usually didn’t drive around for the hell of it but his mind was so caught up on last night he couldn’t help but want to cruise aimlessly around town. It wasn’t long before he found himself back at the pier. The sun was just setting again, darkness creeping up behind him, as he shut off the car and exited. Instead of walking towards the pier he cut right, passed the marina, toward the beach. It was quiet tonight, only the sound of the passing cars and the buzzing of the street lights above could be heard, until he got close enough to the surf. Van pulled his shoes off, set them down in the sand and then he rolled his pants up. It had been a long time since he’d come to the beach just to walk in the surf but tonight it seemed right. He left his shoes behind as he made the trek up the beach, wading through the waves. His thoughts were so caught up in the last week’s revelations that he didn’t see the body resting on the beach until he was almost on top of it. His reaction was one of shock, panic and then unbridled horror. It was Nicole, laying as still as one could be expected of a corpse, in the surf. She had always been as pale as one, so there was no change there. He fell to his knees beside her, horrified and angry that he had to be the one to find her this way. Why had he come here tonight? He should have known better.

“Why? God dammit!” He yelled out.

Nicole’s eyes snapped open, her arms splashed out, and she rose, one hand coming up to clutch her chest.

Van couldn’t have been more shocked if she had jumped up and bit him. He fell backwards, ass landing uncomfortably in the wet sand.

“Zeus’s beard! Van? What the hell are you doing? You scared me to death,” she chastised.

He stared at her, mouth agape. “What am _I_ doing? What the hell are _you_ doing? I thought you were dead!”

“I’m not, no thanks to you. You almost gave me a heart attack.” She sat up fully and he noticed for the first time that she was completely nude. She looked down at herself and then back to him. “I’m up here, Van.”

“Sorry!” He looked away from her chest. “Zeus’s beard? I didn’t know your people were Greek.” His poor attempt at a subject change didn’t go as smoothly as he had planned but she did answer him.

“We’re not. I’m a Will Ferrell fan. What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be looking for me. Hell, you shouldn’t have even remembered me.” She looked at him with a studious glare.

“I wasn’t looking for you. I was just depressed, I thought I’d come for a walk to clear my thoughts. Until you sat up I thought I was looking at your dead body.” She didn’t say anything to that. She just watched him, looking him up and down. “What?”

“You remember me.” She tapped her lips with a finger while she thought.

“Of course I do! You told me you were a mermaid and then you jumped off the damn pier.”

“But I made you forget. You shouldn’t remember. Unless…,” she didn’t finish.

He grabbed her hand, smoothing his own over hers comfortingly. “Look, Nicole, I don’t know how this delusion started but you can get help for it. It’s not too late for you to live a normal life.” His hand continued to stroke hers, she didn’t pull away. A quirky smile upturned her lips.

“Van,” she said.

“Yes?” He stared deeply into her bottomless green eyes. The light was faint but they were so clear, almost as if self illuminated.

She lifted their held hands up before his face. He looked away from her eyes to look down at them. There in the light of the Marina he watched as her skin turned from its normal pale white to silvery, green tinted scales. He almost dropped her hand but the texture was so unique and smooth that he couldn’t. He watched as the transformation happened down her arm, across her chest, from her scalp, down to her toes. She wiggled the webbed digits at him.

“You don’t have fins?” He looked up at her.

She threw her hands up in the air. “What is it with you humans? No, I don’t have fins! So what? It’s like you’d rather I were a fish!”

“I don’t want you to be a fish. I was just under the impression that mermaids had fins. My youngest sister made us watch The Little Mermaid ninety times the year it came out.”

“And Splash too I suppose.” She rolled her eyes. “I swear, if I could get my hands on the man who came up with that stupid stereotype,” she growled, pantomiming her hands around a throat.

“So mermaids are real, huh?” He asked, somehow more okay with this revelation than he probably should be. He scratched at his rough chin. “What about sea monkeys?”

She lowered her brow in promised retaliation. “Brine Shrimp are real, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He smiled, enjoying her indignation. “So, no clam shell bra?”

“I like you, Van, but I will drag you out to sea and leave you there for the sharks.”

He laughed, shoving her gently in the shoulder. She smiled reluctantly.

“Shit,” he exclaimed suddenly. “I reported your death. I’m going to have to call Rick and tell him you’re alive.” He made a move to stand and she reached up to pull him back down to the sand.

“No, Van. It’s better this way. I was leaving anyway.”

“But-” he tried. She lifted a scaled finger, which was also webbed, to his mouth. Surprisingly, it didn’t freak him out in the least.

“No buts. It’s what I want.”

“If being dead to us is what you want, then why haven’t you left yet?” He asked.

She looked away without answering. He took the opportunity to study her anew. The scales were small, tight to the surface so as to give the illusion of smoothness, with that shine that fish had, but she still retained her basic human shape. Honestly, being a mermaid suited her.

“I will miss it. I didn’t think it would be this hard to go but.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what it is.”

“Will Ferrell?” He teased. She turned back to him and smiled.

“Yes, Will Ferrell is one reason. Breakfast burritos are another.”

“I love breakfast burritos.”

“And midnight showings at the movies,” she added.

“I go to Wallcasts on Wednesdays,” he admitted, surprised they had so much in common.

She lit up unexpectedly. “I was just there!”

“Last Wednesday?"

"Army of Darkness?” They both yelled out at the same time and laughed.

“Wow, that’s weird.” _How did I miss_ her _?_

“Very,” she agreed.

He bit the inside of his cheek, nervous to bring up anything that would scare her off again, but badly wanting to ask her to stay. If he could just convince her that South Beach was better than any glass underwater city. How the hell did he do that?

“Nicole?” She looked up from where she had been running her fingers over the sand. “I know I’m not a mythical creature or anything, but maybe, if you are going to stick around…We could go out or something?” He cringed at how high school that had sounded.

“You are actually,” she responded.

He opened his eyes to look at her. “What?”

“You kind of are a mythical creature.” She didn’t look like she was joking but who knew?

“Does being hung like a horse make me a Centaur?”

“No!” She snorted. “I don’t know how to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” Now he was getting nervous.

“I believe you are a Descendant.” She tugged at a silvery, black strand of hair, looking nervous too.

“You think I’m a Merdude? Why?” He shifted uncomfortably in the sand, his pants were soaked through from sitting in the surf. He didn’t feel as at ease in the water as she seemed to, that was for sure.

“Simple. You remembered me. My memory wipe didn’t work on you.”

“You mean when you kissed me? Was that the memory wipe?” He asked.

She turned to look at him and he could swear, even in the dark, he could see her blush.

“That…wasn’t the memory wipe. No.”

“So what was that?” He asked with a grin.

“I just wanted to get one last kiss before I left.”

“You called that a kiss?” He teased.

Before she could answer he took a chance, pushed her down into the sand and kissed her, a real kiss this time. If he was a little nervous about how she would react he needn’t be. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him closer. If anyone ever asked him what a mermaid tasted like they’d be surprised to find out they tasted like Corona and salt. He grinned down at her, unable to keep his thoughts from intruding.

“What?” She asked as she looked up at him.

“Nothing. Nicole, you have to stay. Please say you’ll stay.” She opened her mouth to reply but his nerves couldn’t take a rejection, so he interrupted her. “How about this? Stay for another month. If by the end of the month you still want to go home, I’ll go with you.”

She stared up at him. “You would do that?”

“If I do turn out to be a Merdude, then yeah.” He just wanted more time with her.

“You will,” she said. She placed a hand to his arm. His skin prickled, seemed to pull tight and then it turned from its usual tanned shade to a silvery blue. His eyes bulged as he felt the skin of his fingers stretch out into the similar webbing of Nicole’s fingers. She smiled shyly at him as he gaped at her. He raised his hand up to get a closer look.

“How did you do that?” He turned his hand front to back, watching the play of light off of his scales.

“I forced your body to recognize this form. It was buried in your DNA. I assume your mother probably passed it on. You said she was dramatic?” He nodded. “It would explain it. Our kind are very boisterous.”

“This is unreal.” He continued to take inventory of the changes. “What else is different? Can I breathe underwater now?”

“I can teach you, yes. It’s uncomfortable at first I hear but eventually your body will acclimate.” She slid a hand down his arm. While he was distracted with the webbing of his feet Nicole had managed to pull his shirt off.

“What are you doing?” He asked as she continued to disrobe him.

“I know I came from the sea, but I am still a mammal. Surely you don’t need me to explain this?” She tugged at his wet khakis.

“Oh. Oh!” He took the hint and frantically lifted to help her out in removing his wet pants. As she was already naked it didn’t take long before they were rolling around together in the surf.

Sometime later he turned to her and mumbled, “Having sex with a Mermaid is surprisingly like having sex with a human. Go figure.” He chuckled as they lay spent in the sand.

“I can still pull you out to sea, you know?” She teased.

“Yeah, but now I can swim back.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm keeping it real here, uploading original work on AO3 is like being the kid at school that brought their entire porcelain horse collection to class in their backpack and tried to show people, it's nerve wracking, so thank you to the bottom of my heart if you took the time out of your day to read this story. Really.  
> I don't actually have a porcelain horse collection but I do have pictures of Ben C and occasionally dicks if you're interested. [Misa-nthropy.tumblr.com](http://misa-nthropy.tumblr.com/)


End file.
